


Uncomfortably Numb

by dropout_ninja



Series: Echoes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive Deals, Aliens, Allies, Anger, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Hero, Apathy, Bradley is not a good person, Bureaucracy, Crapsack World, Dubious Morality, Dystopia, Enemies to Allies, Enemies to Friends, Fantasy, Gen, Language, Living in a Crapsack World leaves behind issues, Magic, Mercyfic, Murder, Not Beta Read, Political Alliances, Technology, Telepathy, Urban Fantasy, Vida has issues, Violence, a rabid abuse of grammar, kinda friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29252847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropout_ninja/pseuds/dropout_ninja
Summary: Vida has killed her employer after years spent under his control and, with his death, established safety for those in her territory.  It's only when someone she doesn't particularly want to help asks for safety that she questions how much of her former boss she is going to mirror in her own leadership.As months pass into years, Vida is faced with forming and breaking alliances based on her decision and is left wondering if she made the right choice with one Lucas Bradley's request for amnesty.
Series: Echoes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205621
Comments: 5
Kudos: 3





	Uncomfortably Numb

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SerialKillerQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerialKillerQueen/gifts).



> CW for murder in the beginning scenes (done by our protag), implied murder, implied crime, a spattering of language, and some vaguely described but potentially graphic violence (tag is there just to be safe).  
> @serialkillerqueen has been making delightful original works and inspired me to make and share this! (in other words, my friend made me share this XD) It's overall an experiment, the grammar is purposefully a mess, it's stream of conscious for the most part and the world isn't all that sensical (since it's more themes from characters driving this) so don't try to look too close at it.  
> I hope you enjoy!  
> (Also the title is a reference to the Pink Floyd song 'comfortably numb', the rights of which go to them and not me)

There was a club in her hands. Vol stood at one of her sides with a gun in their own. There was a door in both their way and nothing else.

Nothing else.

The body behind it was a walking corpse even if he didn't know it yet. She was ready to send that corpse to its grave. There were allies backing this, spellcasters, firepower, funding. A whole lotta people wanted the man behind this door dead. A whole lot were willing to pay for that to happen.

If Vida were one of those paying instead of playing the role of the weapon herself, she'd have offered all she had for it.

As it was...

As it was, she was ready for Eyler to die, ready to be the one to kill him, ready, ready, _ready_.

* * *

Whenever Eyler was angry, he'd show it by passing it on to someone else. He liked to pass on emotion and responsibility. It was always _your plan_ with him. When she'd lose a bet, lose a deal, it was back to the drawing board and that drawing board itself was her punishment. It was pain. It was having absolutely no power while listening to Eyler stand behind her and tell her to make _herself_ a _new plan._ A strategy designed to either fail or to hurt her. And when it would do either, it would be on her. It had been her plan, after all and its consequences were her responsibilities to bear. 

If she returned empty handed, the fury wouldn't show on him. He'd just jab at his desk and meet it out and she'd know, somewhere, that it was his game but that awareness wasn't enough to stop it from dragging her down. 

Always the same desk, always the same phrasing, always the same helpless rage felt afterwards that he and his lieutenant would just smile at.

_Get over here. You have plans to make._

Hah. Always his plans, always his designs. Always made to hurt while carrying just enough illusion of autonomy and decision to dig that pain in because- because- when those plans inevitably hurt people: strangers, hers, herself, well...they'd been her plans that had lead to that, now hadn't they? They'd been her strategies, her decisions, her executions, that led to that pain. 

Eyler left her feeling responsible for _their plans_ every time when they had always been _his_.

Aware of that fact or not, it always hurt all the same.

But no more.

Vida shoved through the door and her head avoided Eyler's first shot by some stroke of luck. He didn't get the chance to shoot again. Not when she swung and his skull caved under metal. While the crimelord dropped, Vol raised their weapon at the second inhabitant of the room and shot. There was a screech. It wasn't Vida's focus. Not now.

She wasn't a spellcaster by nature. Her marksmanship was only decent. But it was hard to go wrong with a club.

Vol hadn't killed the other inhabitant of the office. He lay bleeding from an arm and wailing over it from where he'd dropped to the floor. It was a much prettier sight than Eyler was. She hadn't stopped at the head. Eyler was a tough SOB and she wasn't about to ever risk him getting up again. A pile of mush and clothing wouldn't bother doing that. 

Behind her, the office door shut with Vol on the other side. She may have told them to go. It was hard to remember. There was something too unreal about this moment to remember details or words. It lasted an eternity. In that eternal plane, it went on and on, unending violence, blow after blow. But in the linear, Vida finished. Wavered. Fought the pounding in her temples. Looked at the finished murder. Her best plan made that involved Eyler. The final interaction. They'd never be together in this room again. 

Eyler's job was done.

And it left just the loose end to deal with.

* * *

Vida knew his full name. Of course she had to. The right hand, the lieutenant. A boss called the shots, but it was the lackeys that tended to really detail how those actions would occur. While she hadn't seen him pit against her very often, she wouldn't forget the face or name of Lucas Bradley any sooner than she'd forget the crimes he'd committed.

There had been the second time her hand had been forced, for example. 

(Not the first. The first had been a manner of inexperience and youth and hope gone wrong but not stifled. Eyler had known the game and she had not. She'd thought her failure was a fault of her own that could be rectified before the next time and never occur again. She'd not considered then that it was his web she was tied in, his game played by the rules he'd written.)

(It had been nice to think she could play fairly. That she could come out on top of corruption and violence through virtue.)

The second time, Eyler's victorious grin had taken on a new edge. He knew what she knew, which she knew because he did. He showed it through that expression. Through her despair. Through the dread that came with reality.

He knew that she'd never stood a chance. Vida had been idealistic, had wanted to do what was best for her crew, had thought she could manage such while working with Eyler's own. The first time he'd forced her hand, she'd thought it a fluke, a fault that some hard work and quick thinking could avoid. But the second time he held her hand while it held the metaphorical executioner's ax, the reality had hit hard and fast that no- no, she couldn't win this. Until he was toppled from that seat, she was a pawn in his game. She was helpless.

And it hurt others. 

It hurt so many others. 

Vida had never wanted to hurt people when this started. 

Seeing red with Eyler had just driven in how much his game had forced her to change. And after the club stopped swinging, that haze had stayed just long enough to see where Bradley was staring at her from where he held his shattered arm.

The man had been there, by Eyler's side. For years and years, he'd been there and let Eyler get away with all the hurt, all the pain. He'd stood there the first time and he'd stood there the second to bear witness to her own despair. She'd been their unwilling pawn.

He...

(She couldn't ignore the idea that he might have been as well)

But did it matter if his crimes had been done with glee or with denial? 

The club remained on the pulped body below. She had yet to attack. Bradley shifted against the floor. His legs pushed futilely to give him a few more meager inches distance. It amounted only to sliding a little further up against the wall he'd already been backed upon. 

Lucas Bradley had been Eyler's longest (surviving) lieutenant. All control over the survivors went to him-

and there were numerous. Her one coup was to strip Eyler of power and the ability to ever control groups or individuals again. It'd managed this. It'd won its support. They had made allies in this fight that would likely continue that status now that Vida had proved her worth in ridding them of Eyler's threat. And still they paled compared to the empire Bradley had now been promoted to the head of.

They could kill him too here and still Eyler's empire would function on outnumbering so many others. 

Neither had spoken yet. Bradley's tongue flicked up to wet whitened, cracked lips. It seemed like a despairing motion.

(- _Your choice, of course_ \- purred with a smile, his lieutenants looking smug behind, and the sinking sinking despair that there was no choice at all, no choices ever again, no choice even to start with no matter how deeply illusioned she'd been to think otherwise)

She'd never been fond of how smug Bradley was. There was a feral satisfaction in seeing the tables turned. 

(but she wasn't smug; she merely _was_. Done her job, done it well, got nothing emotional from it. Working in Eyler's reality had closed off the chance to be hopeful over success or smug at victory)

(she persisted, endured. existed. maybe in time, there could be more atop that, but not now)

And even that satisfaction was suffocated by exhaustion. She wanted rest. 

She just wanted to rest, safe for the first time since obliviously falling into a crimelord's net.

But Bradley wouldn't allow her to do that. He was here in this room. A loose end. A decision waiting to happen. To kill, to hand off to the Axai or others that wanted a surviving lieutenant, to subjugate in order to steal an empire she didn't want.

Eyler would have been the type to take control here. Lay out the latest strings that would end up tripping and binding whoever was just trying to find a way to survive falling into his periphery to start with. 

Forcing her hand, directing it- making her take actions she didn't want, that her allies didn't want- actions she obeyed because listening to him would keep the rest safer and happier and yet being his pawns only made each one of them more miserable than they'd been before. 

The dread was still there, buried in her chest, pulsating, pulsating, easily remembered even with the madman dead. And a familiar face was still here in the room, still surviving, cheeks hollowed and eyes wide instead of smirking right alongside his boss. 

Nervous. Scared.

(No shit. He'd lost his boss and his personality had hardly endeared him with her, so she couldn't imagine he was popular with many of the other toys Eyler left behind- without Eyler, he couldn't feel safe from anyone's ire)

(not hers)

The door to the bloody office shoved open. One of her own lieutenant's entered. His eyes caught sight of the survivor of her carnage and the hand on his gun tensed. 

News was shared first. All expected. They'd done what they came to do. The high of victory was creeping forth. They'd celebrate tonight. Likely for longer. This portion of the world would celebrate. And that couldn't blind them today. They were outnumbered here. They had to get out of Eyler's territory. As much chaos as they'd be in with him dead, his people heavily outnumbered hers. 

And yet...

She couldn't leave just yet. She couldn't. Not until everything was tied up here. Not until the rest of this chapter had been buried, one way or another. 

Her officer noticed where Vida's attention was at.

"Ms. Mehr, should I..."

The gesture of the gun barrel towards the surviving man was elaboration enough for the sentence left unsaid. 

Vida lifted her hand.

"No. I'll deal with him."

Wording that didn't mean immediate death. That much, Bradley could tell as well. His expression lit with hope. Vida...Vida didn't know what to do with that hope. What to do with him.

The antagonist watching her grief over his boss's shoulder was gone. The only similarities between that man and the one before her now came from the shared body, no matter how differently its features twisted now.

"But the Axai...The highest ranking-"

"I know what they wanted from us," she cut him off. The idea of handing anyone over to the Axai made her uneasy. They may not have had the power they had in decades past, but the clan was searching to regain that. A current ally or not, she didn't want them to get that chance. No more than she wanted to hand someone over to their alchemists and sadists.

But they weren't important at this very moment. That was a bridge she'd cross later, after this more pressing one was dealt with first. 

Vida ordered the officer gone, promising to catch up soon. She would. She had to. She was making it away from this alive. This chapter closed, this monster dead, and now was the time to recover and grow again. To make it up to her people. To make it up to the memory of all those Eyler had directed her to hurt in the promise of helping hers avoid that. Dying now would never offer her that chance to finally-

finally-

She didn't know. _Do_ something right, she supposed. Feel right. 

So she heard the door close behind and knew that she was on a timer still. That she couldn't dally. But she couldn't rush, not when her greatest mistakes came from rushing decisions.

Bradley shifted up, making it further off the ground but still far from standing. She loomed over him. Over Eyler's corpse.

"Vi-id-" 

He seemed to see her face harden at the unwanted familiarity.

"Mehr," he switched. He'd made it past one knee, struggling up. A part of her almost leaned over to tug him up by the good shoulder. Another wanted to shove him back down, watch him kneel for a bit longer. 

"Mehr, please."

( _Eyler, please- please-! This is unnecessary, can't you see that? Don't make me do this, there's an alternative, there must be. Listen to me, just listen, just_ listen-)

"Please what?" Vida parroted back sharply.

Too sharply. Her heart wasn't in it. If it had been Eyler, maybe, but Eyler was an unrecognizable pulp behind her who she hadn't allowed the chance to beg. If she had, if his mouth had opened, it would have been another trapping deal, another, another, _no_. **_No_**.

"You don't have to shoot," Bradley said. "You don't have to use _that-_ " he nodded at the club, fear evident. 

No. But then what? He was experienced. Hardly another Eyler, but he was an unknown threat in charge of too many people, resources, territory, firepower. There was no saying how dangerous his retribution would be.

"No? Then what, Bradley? I let you pull the rest together and rile against me? We wouldn't stand a chance and you know it. What we managed here isn't a feat likely to come again."

He had no answer to the concerns. He merely stared at the floor, hand grasping at his wound still, face pinched.

"The Axai want you."

Ah. There was the draining blood. 

"For what?" Bradley asked in a strangled whisper.

Vida didn't know. That was a state she'd chosen. The details weren't relevant to her and she'd told the Axai's spokesman as much when the creature had begun to so excitedly explain what they'd do with whatever hostage she left alive.

"You know as much as I," she shrugged. Played more casual than she felt. She'd sooner beat Bradley's skull in than hand him over to those creatures. 

The human licked chapped lips again.

"They want a hostage," Vida elaborated. "An example. Eyler caused them a whole lotta grief. I'd almost be surprised if they ever manage to recover from the damage, though it'd certainly be easier if they have an insider's mind to pick through."

The mind in question would never be the same. Body neither. The Axai's methods had been notorious throughout history. Most were. Eyler's empire. The Vitio System, her most helpful sponsor in the fight against the former. The world was split into monsters and she fit right in, just as Bradley. Monsters wouldn't hesitate to hand anyone over to the Axai's tender mercies if it meant cementing an alliance. If not that, then they wouldn't hesitate to kill a weakened opponent unless they could be...useful.

"Mehr, Mehr, I can't-...You won. Not them. I'd rather..."

Hah. She bet he would. She was _pathetic_. _Silly_. Just _another embarrassment_ that Eyler picked out of _eager strays._

(Bradley had never been filtered with his insults before, why would he? Eyler gave no consequence for it and she couldn't fight back against such a high rank when he wanted to tear through her confidence or worth)

So _sure_. She believed he wanted to swear loyalty to _her_. Hah indeed. 

It'd probably be more humiliating for him to be hers than the Axai's. Less painful, though, and undoubtedly that was why he offered.

Vida laughed.

"I can't go out there and tear your territory down, you know that. But if I give them you and a few months, I'd bet the Axai could. It'd be a prettier world without your thugs." 

It'd be trading one evil for another, but...Eyler's hurt. His evil hurt. The Axai were archaic. People were on guard around them. They couldn't get past defenses and convince people that they had their best interests in mind the way Eyler, and Bradley to a lesser degree, could.

And she could hold on to the image of his legacy smoking when looking at the despair this enemy wore right now.

"Why do you think I'd be any better?" Vida muttered. Her arms ached. She wanted to set the club aside. It felt too heavy now. She wanted to be done. Finished. Resting. 

Bradley's jaw clenched visibly. Unclenched. Clenched again. 

"It'll be yours," he offered. 

_It_ need not be defined. She'd came here once hoping for _it_ , after all. For Eyler's enviable control and resources. Before time under his thumb had worn her too thin to ever recover from.

"I'll step aside for you. Kneel to you. Y-you wouldn't need the Axai's alliance if you take us all here."

"And you?" she asked. "You're selling an empire to someone you know wants to tear down his-" a nod to the corpse, a mutually shared grimace "-legacy."

It was overwhelming. 

Coming to kill was something she'd long grown numb to. Taking life through blood wasn't easy, but she understood it. Taking numerous lives through control was- was-

(she'd done it before, she did it now, or was her team anything less? but she cared for them all. she hated Eyler's people. she couldn't trust herself to control them)

"That's not going to happen, Bradley."

There was the despair again, worse, worse, she wanted it gone. He didn't understand. She wasn't turning this aside out of sadism. She knew better than to accept power over the lives being offered. 

The man closed eyes tight. Let his legs crumple again and ruin all the effort made in standing. His voice was thick when it spoke again. 

Vida felt panic briefly at the mere idea he'd start crying. That wasn't right. That wasn't how toppling these two was meant to go. She was prepared for anger and snide undermining and more comments on how she'd never be capable, not- 

_this_.

Bradley paid no heed to the panic from the woman.

"I'm willing to do-"

Not ‘ _anything’_. No one could say so with honesty, no one could sell their soul for such an absolute. Bradley worked alongside Eyler for long enough to know how much worse such a promise was.

"...Make- make what extreme requests you want, I'll offer much, so much, I- just consider. Just consider, please, for the rest of them, for my life. The Axai would ruin so many, so many..."

He...

He cared. 

Maybe it was an act. She wouldn't put it past him. He'd never struck her as the type to give a shit about anyone but himself. 

He couldn't be worse than Eyler.

And their empire was corrupt, yes. But full of people. Like her. Like her gang, all sworn to Eyler once she'd made her first deal with him. People like her. 

Maybe she should accept the offer. She'd not have to worry about getting chased down for revenge. All those who'd want to do that would be her own subordinates. The time limit ticking down right now to flee his territory would become moot. 

And she'd own them all. A dozen officers whose faces made her blood boil. 

At least one of which was willing to go to extremes to stay alive and inside the defense of this empire away from the reach of those rivals like the Axai or the Vitio System. 

Vida looked down on the bleeding figure and she was helpless to the conclusion made. 

"Get up."

The sound of the club hitting the metal flooring made both flinch to attention when she dropped it. A now-free hand pointed to Eyler's desk. Bradley's eyes tracked her movement as Vida stepped over the corpse to pull a chair out. Stand strong next to it. Steely. 

"Get over here," she spoke flatly. "You have plans to make."

* * *

The first month after Eyler's death had been a mix of ecstatic happiness and anger. The world reeled without him but it had truly to adjust and realize what life without the crimelord would be like. 

Her territory managed to increase by a few dozen new square miles. All out of Eyler's old land, as per Bradley's 'plan'. Their allies hadn't offered their own land. 

Her people were happy with the space. With the additional feeling of safety. They were well fed and their new land was offering space for greenhouses that could add the hope that making deals for food wouldn't be anywhere as needed in the future as it had been in the past. 

Eyler's shadow was gone.

They were happy.

She wasn't numb enough to be immune to that, as it turned out. 

It made the anger sting a little more.

Those close to her had heard enough to understand. Parker accepted the decision. Vol had been silent of any opinion vocally, but their embraces and the way they always offered her room to vent showed Vida that they too accepted the choice. Rena had yelled. A lot. Rena had been hurt during their time under Eyler, hurt in ways Vida could never help, never fix, never soothe. But oh, Vida had been damaged too. And the accusations otherwise weren't easy to accept without snapping back. 

Rena had left for the border after a fight had ended in a blow that shattered her cheekbone. Vida couldn't make up for that ever either. 

She wondered if Bradley left marks like that on officers under him. Wondered if both of them were so disgusting at leading. If anger was as unfiltered with him as it was for her. A part of her hoped so. The idea that her violence was worse than someone like his...No. She _was_ better. She just left a low bar.

There was no apologizing for the altercation with Rena. But she wasn't going to feel a need for apologizing about what caused the fighting to start with. 

No matter if it made friends angry. People she'd never met that were under her wing angry. Some allies had been furious. Enough so they were former allies. Not all, at least. And those truly vindictive couldn't strike. The Axai had not been offered their edge from assimilating Eyler's empire because the empire hadn't fallen when its boss had.

Eyler had died but he'd left behind a 2IC to take control. 

_How could you have-_

_Why'd you let him live-_

_They're not going to thank you-_

_They'll come for us again-_

Over and over. Rinse and repeat. 

No one else had been there. No one else could say they knew what they'd have done in her place until they actually got the chance to be in that place. 

She'd been funded to get rid of Eyler. She had. She didn't have to tear apart the people he left behind. 

Oh, there'd been clauses. A great many of them. Bradley hadn't walked out of their deal with the advantage. He'd given land up, resources up, credibility and strength and the terror his predecessor elicited.

He'd hardly been heard of since that day. Hiding away, nursing wounds. Maybe plotting. Vida wanted to hope he wasn't but she wasn't staking anything on that hope, or any, ever being proven true. 

He had his life and the lives of his people and that would just have to be enough. 

It always had been for her.

* * *

The next months saw an end to the initial relief. What had been new became normalcy.

What happened in the world was never her concern. She worried for hers and hers alone. It was too hard to balance any more than that. 

But the world changed in ways that made it impossible for her to merely retreat into comforting safety. Vida Mehr was not a nameless hired hand for Eyler. She held a notable amount of territory for her own. Her decision to leave Eyler's- now Bradley's- empire functioning had displeased many allies, but when had anyone ever managed to please allies in full? They still offered enough respect to not just try to buy her out. 

She didn't have to hear much from her former associates in Eyler's territory. They'd had a rather violent breakup, heh. Neither wanted to chat.

Or so she expected.

The message came as a surprise. She'd almost turned it down when the first telepathic prodding signaled someone attempting contact.

But the initial obstinance and worry aside, she had the firewalls to keep an unwanted mental attack if this were just a trap. Vida allowed it. 

The connection was crushed as soon as its play was finished. The thanks was belated. Unwanted. She thought it was unwanted, at least. What else would she think? It wasn't like she wanted to hear the words of a former enemy. 

(Former? There was no guarantee it was former rather than an enemy waiting to retaliate and yet she felt that it was. Bradley had been too _defeated_ to bounce back for retaliation)

More time passed before another attempt at contact was attempted. Onesided once again. Bradley wasn't stupid. He knew she'd never agree to a conversation. He was betting enough on her listening to a premade message. 

_A new age,_ he talked of. _You showed me there could be. You continue to show it with your station._

_Eyler was sick._

_Can't deny having my own hand in 'incidents'. Won't bother trying to._

_Left behind the single strongest faction on this plane, but one surrounded by enemies or apathy._

_A few have reached out. I can't trust any of them._

_I can trust you._

Hardly. Bradley was too smart to trust. Yet...

There was a request to work on a truce. A deal. A publicized alliance.

She didn't want to be under the wing of the empire that she'd tried so hard to let her people escape from. 

The request went unanswered then.

* * *

The Axai may have been archaic but they were nothing if not persistent. Their time in power was over yet they pushed for it to return no matter the odds. 

The creatures of that territory were innately intuned with the mystic as no human was. It had taken implants, helmet interface, tools, to even touch telepathy. They had never needed such and their functioning was alien. Those humans dragged into Axain territory to be made examples of were irreparable primarily because whatever had been done to them was alienly engineered and indecipherable. 

Vida didn't fear the Axai for being infamous or strange. She feared them because she'd worked with them, seen them, gotten past the mysterious curtain held in front of most. She knew they were dangerous and she knew they wanted a return to their long lost status. Knowing that alone was enough. 

As Eyler's successor, Bradley had to know this much as well. He feared them, that much had been obvious when she'd agreed to not hand him over to them.

When a message inviting her to a summit came, then, Vida felt surprised. The Axai had wanted him then for his crimes alongside his former employers. Why now had they been slowly offering deals to a reeling empire?

Bradley didn't know. He bluntly said as much. 

Turning them aside would mean war. There was no saying what the Axai were capable of. Their power could have been an entire bluff. It could have easily been stronger than any other station or system. When they twisted elements and reality and minds in spells that no one else had scraped the surface of including into implants, no one wanted to risk calling their bluff. 

If they began offering small deal after small deal to you, you said yes.

Familiar, that. You did the same with Eyler's deals but you weren't as aware of your soul being sold with him as compared to obscured alien creatures. He made it seem that you could back out. That you could design the deal. That you could ally merely once and never have to again. 

You walked into his hands with a hidden confidence that you'd come out on top and then years passed and he owned you and directed you and you had no fucking choice with anything anymore. 

Vida listened to the message again.

Listened to the request for her to bring others to the offered summit. To outnumber the Axai. To _help_ Eyler's legacy.

_You gave me a chance. You gave me a chance._

She could bring Vol. Parker, probably, though he was too hot headed to be much use in a delicate situation. Even Vol could be. Too many of her officers were.

It had been comfortable to merely exist. To not worry about others and deals and appeasing people that wanted only their own advantages realized. To watch their food supplies stabilize and health improve and houses build. 

Bradley wanted an ally and he picked the one who'd upturned his life in the first place. The one that had come close to killing him for the simplicity. Had it been the other way...

Well. She'd never liked being under someone else's mercy. The last person she'd lived under the mercy of, she'd beat to death. It was unnerving, uneasy, nauseating. The debt was bad enough. The knowledge they could've done worse, any time...

She had a good gig here. A nice gig. Quiet, for once. Small.

Vida frowned.

_Have I not done enough for you?_

(Had she not done enough to him to keep him from ever choosing her presence?)

Well. 

Bradley's resources and manpower would not be a combination for the Axai. Not for her. Not when she'd insulted the Axai by giving their target his own empire instead of delivering him to them. 

She'd go to the summit. For her sake, hardly Bradley's.

* * *

One summit was a deceiving way to put things. When parties wished to combine, separate, trade, etc., it took multiple meetings and multiple moderators. 

Neither the sipping of hoarded alcohol and the fighting of angry spokespeople were her scene. It was too slow. Tedious. She preferred to make plans without additional voices clouding things up.

At the first, she'd not spoken much at all. Vol had talked for her at one point, but they had grown too heated with an envoy from Lurun, a lead supplier of water, and the nerves that had elicited from Vida (to anger the Lurun was to sign a death warrant or prepare for water theft, neither of which were much sustainable to survival) led to her leaving them behind for the next. 

At the second, she'd been approached by a spokesperson Bradley brought. She'd informed Vida that the man wanted to talk with her. Vida had denied the chance and grilled the subordinate instead. They'd discussed what his vision was. What it wasn't. All buried in polite obscurity. If she wanted specifics...

She met early for the breakfast offered by the motel she'd booked at for the third time. Bradley had looked calm. Too calm. She didn't know how someone could be calm around a person they were indebted to when her mind was trapped thinking of the bloody room and nervous chapped lips and despair-

"I don't want a deal with them," he said bluntly.

No shit. No one sane wanted to deal with the Axai. They'd gone through the Vitio System to sponsor her friendly visit to Eyler and she'd accepted that because it was helpful. Didn't mean she worked with them without a mediating party. No more than Bradley wanted to.

"They want me dead. My people for manpower. You understand why I'd want to avoid that?"

Basic decency? 

The talking went on for a bit longer. The calm remained. All businesslike. Straightening his vest, keeping his cloak clean, all the appearance of the Lucas Bradley that stood at Eyler's side or stood alone while ordering the deaths of dozens. 

She wondered if it numbed him like her own killings did for her or if he'd been numb to remorse to start with. 

"They won't try to enforce the grip they've got on me now if I can solidify more allies that would protest that assimilation. You have the Vitia with you still, you've got me. If you reciprocate, then I’ll have the Vitia’s defense as well as yours and maybe..."

If the Axai wanted them, they'd just keep trying. Vida couldn't pretend that her little territory was strong enough to make that much of a difference.

Bradley held an arm out, hand open and waiting. Waiting- for what? For her? She'd not agreed to anything. 

"I'm not making an alliance," Vida slapped his hand away. 

There was a beat of silence. Her palm stung. His smile had dropped but it wasn't anger that replaced it so much as disappointment and...fear. The Axai had a stronger hold on him than he wanted to admit. Pity. She rather preferred honesty. If he outright said they left him terrified and he was desperate for allies, it have been more appeasing. Understandable, as well.

"Not yet," she added, not entirely conscious of speaking the words herself. 

* * *

Vitia did accept a request to host talks. Though they despised Eyler, Vida had ground out that the new leader wasn't the same. The system had accepted her appeal for a summit.

The Axai expressed pleasure at this. Any option to get their thumb a little stronger over Bradley pleased them. Vida wasn't blind though. Inhuman or not, she could read body language enough to see that they were unhappy with her and the Vitia System both. They were being undermined and they knew it. It wouldn't surprise her if the Vitia System found themselves drifting away from the friendly treatment the Axai had spent years buttering them up with. 

If there was one perk out of this, it was that Vitia's system had far more comforts than many others. Vida was used to the dirt and dust but it was nice to travel somewhere so sterile that it felt fantastical and unreal. Its amenities were hiding skeletons and she was hardly fit to touch any, but it was...nice. Briefly. It would have been nicer if she hadn't been planning on talks with Bradley again.

There was a fight during the supper meal. Vol (invited again because they insisted on being so; Vida understood the importance of a bodyguard in this far of a territory and accepted the offer) had jumped between one thrown cup and knocked it aside before it could hit her. Vida slid away from her seat while they handled matters. 

She made it to the hall before her head felt itself fritzing. One hand grabbed at her temple as though that would push away the wavering prods trying to push inside. 

It was an offer, as it turned out. A chance to talk until the scuffle wore down and bodies were dragged away. 

Yeah. Because she so wanted to go get stuck in private with the guy. 

Still, she made her way to the offered meeting spot- a nearby library- and both kept a good distance while muttering at walls instead of each other's faces. 

First about the Axai. 

Then about the scrolls found in this place. Vitia prided itself in preserving what the world below let fall to ruin. Anyone who'd ever been privy to Eyler's many office places would know that the world below had plenty of its own books hoarded. Didn't matter. Let Vitia brag about what Vitia would brag of.

Bradley didn't have half bad taste when it came to what lay in here. Not that it could last. They had business to talk. The memory of a meeting gone bloody to think of. Debt to remember. How pleading was worn. She should have been more uneasy about the chat by the time she left the scrolls behind to return at Vol's call.

It hadn't been a bad library at all. She didn't regret the visit.

* * *

The storm broke a year from then. The vague conversation had amounted to nothing more than noncommittal trades: food for water, a bit more land. Occasional attempt at small talk. Bradley had taken to asking for reading recommendations, prying for her opinions on what philosophies held more weight than others. It wasn't Vida's field of interest. She dug the names of philosophical works up anyways. On other occasions, he spilled more and more evidence of that fear he held for the Axai and the control they kept pushing over him. She'd been there. Didn't mean she knew what to say. Didn't mean she cared enough to try to say anything that would ease it all. Sometimes, though, she came close to trying. 

There'd never been an alliance. 

By the time the Axai sprang, there wasn't a chance for more than a few deals and gradually easing nerves. Vida didn't think of Eyler every single time she spoke to Bradley. The way she'd started to think of it, he had done enough to hurt her people on his own and she might as well feel angry at him for that rather than Eyler's actions. And even those felt faded in the face of passing months, of visible fear being cautiously bared for advice and cries for help, of odd commentary on topics she was numb to, of all the raids and one sided deals and deaths she herself had committed. 

So when the territory neighboring her own was wrapped in Axai power, Vida wasn't ready to just let her old enemies get dealt with by this seperate party. 

Because, truth be told, they weren’t old enemies anymore. They weren’t friends, but Eyler- Eyler was gone. Gone. And in his place was an asshole, a criminal, that put more priority on the people in his empire than Eyler ever had.

Vida hadn't accepted the Vitia System's bribe to stand down and let this happen. 

Her crew had managed to break through the landmass's border before when they'd stormed in to kill Eyler. They'd do it again, with or without the allies they'd been funded by before.

* * *

It was grueling, wearing.

Leather and metal went only so far. 

The fires seared her retina. She felt as though her eyes would always see those fires, lids open or shut. Permanence. Permanence for the sake of...

"A truce, then."

They'd ran across each other at the burning ruins of a town. The Axai had fled it, for now. A joint effort had forced many to flee. Those that didn't joined the corpses of fallen humans. 

Parker and Vol were nearby cleaning up the rest of the surviving drones of their opponents. Neither fired on the other party of humans present. Vida hadn't given the order to. Vida wouldn't. 

One leg was bleeding. It reminded her of an arm, held onto by a shaking uninjured hand after bone and muscle had torn under a bullet's force. Different limbs, same man. But when he moved her way through the ash, it was with the farthest cry from the fear he'd worn in that office. There, he'd been defeated. Here, he was a victor. They both were. There, he'd been on the other end of hostility and had relied solely on that hostile to let him walk again with life and his power intact. Here, there was no mistaking that he did not feel fear at the situation with her. 

But one had to feel so if the other didn't and...except...she didn't either. 

This was what she'd expected when directing an attack on the Axai. 

It wasn't a debt. She wasn't under his power, his pity. He wasn't either, not anymore. She didn't- she didn't have to make sure everyone else fit into that discomfort just to ensure her own. 

He wasn't hotheated. It could be...useful. To all involved. To have his help could be more balanced and advantageous than continuing to work solo. And there was something satisfactory about working with someone who could keep a cool head in a fight. Equally numb.

Truce, truce, he'd said it hadn't he? Teeth glinting in firelight, face a mess, leg close to crumpling but expression cocky, almost _friendly_. Like he wanted them both to laugh here, on top of the ash while an enemy fled. 

(and here she might have wanted just that as well)

Truce, then. 

Truce. 

He held his hand out, glove worn, cut, coated in ash from burns it'd avoided touching. Unclean, damaged, from their fight. From their fight, the one they'd fought and finished together rather than on opposing sides. 

Vida reached her hand out- caught sight of where the leather of her own had cut apart and soot stained its surface- caught sight of the similarity and thought of his orders, her orders, their shared ghost- and caught his firmly.

* * *

They discussed their deal over a desk, much like they had their first. But that had been unilateral. That had been prying land and supplies and humility out of Bradley in exchange for her leaving without giving him the treatment she'd given Eyler. That had been her leaning too forward, looming, him crushed in his chair, weak, weak, ready to agree to so much he could not have truly wished to. 

This was less bloody. Less crushing. The desk was larger. They were able to sit further apart. To sit so far was comforting. His crimes, her crimes; his acts, her acts. To come closer would be discomforting for her and likely to him as well. Too familiar to her time under Eyler and his thumb. Too familiar to when she held a metaphorical blade at his throat and decided to let him go. The distance was different. They were different. Exhausted, weakened, down a good proportion of forces, but...ready. 

Ready. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Under your wings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29319348) by [SerialKillerQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerialKillerQueen/pseuds/SerialKillerQueen)




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